Excerpt from Vindication: Revised Liturgy Historical and Theological

The Request prefixed to this pamphlet sufficiently explains its occasion and object; while it is of a character also not only to justify, but even to demand and require its appearance. It is most true, that Dr. Bomberger's tract is one-sided and un fair, and therefore calculated to do much harm in the Church. It was brought out hastily, just before the meeting of the late General Synod at Dayton, to serve a party purpose, and as part of a plan to pre-occupy the members of that body (particularly in the West), with a prejudice against the Revised Liturgy, which, it was hoped, might be sufficient to overwhelm and crush it before it could have a chance of coming before the people. It was, in this respect, like a political campaign document, let off on the eve of an election for effect; and it is characterized throughout by the spirit of reckless misrepresentation we usually meet with, and expect to meet with, in publications of this sort. Its criticisms on the Liturgy itself do not amount to much. They are vague, indefinite, and loose; turning, for the most part, on the use of invidious terms of reproach, and appeals to popu lar prejudice. But this is only a small part of its offence. By far the greater part of the tract is devoted to another object altogether. Under the pretence of giving a history of the Lit urgy, it seeks to make capital against it by trying to show that it is a grand fraud, which has been practised upon the Church by the Committee intrusted with the work of its preparation.

In this view, it is an atrocious libel throughout upon the charac ter of the Committee, as well as an insult to the Church at large, in whose service they have been working for so many years. All this was brought out clearly enough in the Synod at Dayton; and the political bomb-shell went off there without much execu tion. But the matter deserves unquestionably a still more pub lic exposure. The voice of so large a portion of our Eastern lay delegation in attendance at Dayton deserves to be heard. I proceed, therefore, to the task of vindicating the Liturgy from the wrong that is done to it in this tract, both historically and theologically. The personalities which this must involve, to a certain extent, I should have preferred having nothing to do with; but I do not see how they are to be avoided.

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